


The Breath and the Hope

by jennyfly



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Bad Decisions, Blood and Injury, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Dean Winchester is Bad at Self-Care, Hurt Dean Winchester, M/M, Memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:07:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24079501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jennyfly/pseuds/jennyfly
Summary: Dean Winchester drags his beaten body into a nameless bar to drink away the pain. The cheap whiskey does its trick, but in the meantime sharp memories remind him to breathe while old habits cause him to hope.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 5
Kudos: 16





	The Breath and the Hope

**Author's Note:**

> Note: This is canonical Destiel.  
> Q: Where is Sam Winchester in this story?  
> A: Error 404 File not found.

“What’s your story, mister?” The bartender placed a coaster in front of him and he pointed at a bottle.

“What do you mean?” he hedged as she poured. “I’m just here for a drink.”

With an eyebrow raised, she leaned in, “You been rode hard and put away unsatisfied. I can see it all over you.”

Dean tipped the tumbler to his mouth and let the whiskey roll over his tongue. It certainly wasn’t the good stuff, but that was okay. He didn’t deserve anything good tonight.

“What makes you think I’m unsatisfied?” he might as well flirt with her if it kept her pouring the drinks. He tried for half a smile before remembering his busted cheekbone, and it turned into a grimace. That was surely swelling up by now.

“You lost someone you love,” she said, and it was uncanny how it felt like a knife to the gut. He should know; he prodded at the dressings on his abdomen and shifted on the barstool.

He gestured for another drink and decided to give up on the flirting. His heart certainly wasn’t in it. He didn’t want anything from the bartender except the booze, and he had probably had enough of that. Dean just let his eyes drift shut for a few minutes, and he did that thing Cas used to suggest.

He even heard it in Cas’ voice: “ _Just breathe, Dean. Breathe with me. In, two, three, four. Hold, two three four. Out, two, three, four, five. That’s good. Do it again._ ” Cas counted him through it a few times and then once Dean was breathing slow and deep on the automatic, his instructions changed. “ _Name three things you hear, Dean._ ”

Dean murmured to himself, “Jukebox, ice clinking on the glasses, a guy at my six telling a lie.”

Cas counted Dean through the breathing twice more. Then, “ _Tell me three things you taste, Dean._ ”

“Whisky. Blood, from the cut inside my bottom lip. Salt.” Dean’s voice choked, and he realized that he was crying freely, but at least silently.

“ _Tell me three things you smell_.”

Dean sniffed harshly because he couldn’t smell anything due to his stuffed sinuses from crying. Then he breathed through another cycle as Cas’ voice ran through it in his head.

“The whiskey. Some kind of perfume, maybe the bartender’s. My own sweat, from the fight.”

“ _Good, Dean. Remember to keep breathing. Now tell me three things you feel._ ”

“The glass in my hand, the throb in my wound, and—”

“ _And what, Dean_?”

“You. I feel you in my—my chest, my stomach, my lungs, my throat. I feel you everywhere, Cas.”

“ _Keep breathing, Dean. I’m with you_.”

Dean’s eyes flew open, and his breathing grew ragged because it was a lie. Cas was gone, and he would never be with Dean again.

Dean swayed on his feet when he stood. Tossing a couple of twenties on the bar (a flamboyant tip he would probably regret by tomorrow when he needed to eat), he turned and found himself chest to chest with the bartender.

“Steady there, big guy. I can’t let you leave like this. You’re in no condition to drive.”

Dean could have picked her up and put her down on the other side of him in order to clear his path to the door, but the room was spinning, and he remembered the blood loss he had suffered.

She steered him around and down the hall to the restrooms. “Do you gotta pee, mister?”

“You wanna hold it for me?”

“Don’t be rude.” She leaned him against the wall. The lighting here was brighter than at the bar, and she looked like she just noticed the blood on his tee shirt. “Great,” she muttered, testily. “I’m trying to take you to the employee lounge. Before I—Hey! Open your eyes. Okay, before I put you on the sofa, do you need to piss? I’m not cleaning up after you if you piss yourself.”

Dean sighed and saw a door marked MEN and heaved himself toward it. At first the bartender followed like she really was going to hold it for him, but she stopped at the door once she flipped on the light switch and waited there.

After taking care of business, Dean paused at the sink to toss water onto his face. In the mirror he could see that his eye was half swollen. _Probably a fracture in that cheekbone_. The bruise would last a while. At the moment it was deeply red and starting to purple a bit. Otherwise, he was pale as a sheet of paper. From behind him in the mirror, he saw a portrait of _Generalisimo_ Pancho Villa smoking menacingly. With a shoddy salute to the general, Dean turned away from the mirror and rejoined the lady in the hallway. Taking both his shoulders in hand, she turned him toward a door marked EMPLOYEES, and he suddenly found himself on a soft but musty couch.

“I gotta get back to the bar. You okay here?”

Dean’s eyes were closing. “’m good.”

She looked doubtful but turned to leave anyway. At the door she paused. “What’s your name, anyway?”

“Dean,” he muttered. His gut wound hurt, and he didn’t know where to put his arms. The bartender turned off the light, and Dean heard the door click shut as he rolled himself onto the side that was slightly less beat up. Folding his arms over himself, he sighed, and let his eyes leak tears again.

 _Why did I have to be the one to survive this?_ he asked himself. _Jesus that sounds like a prayer_ , he scoffed. _No one to pray to anymore. No one left._

His eyes opened. _Maybe_ , he thought. _Maybe with Rowena’s help. It worked before. Sort of. Rowena would give me more time for it. Sell my soul to get him back._

As sleep claimed him, Dean thought the plan through in a dream: the crossroads, the box, the dirt, the deal, the reunion, the kiss.

He woke hard and sweating. His stitches were stinging hotly and were tacky with blood, but at least he had one thing he hadn’t possessed when he walked into this dive: hope.


End file.
